Concerning Congressman Paul

As a politician, Texas Congressman Ron Paul is really one-of-a-kind. He possesses many qualities almost unrecognizable amongst his fellow politicians. For one thing, he is consistent (a positive phenomenon amongst the political class). He was saying the exact same things about the Constitution, the Federal Reserve, states’ rights and foreign policy thirty years ago that he is saying now. After all of that time he is the only politician who, I would say, truly and sincerely believes the things he talks about and the principles he advocates. Ron Paul is also the only one who has been telling the truth about the Federal Reserve system, he saw the current crisis coming a very long time ago and he is the one politician who I would put my money on being sincerely devoted to the Constitution above all else. Part of the reason his sincerity can be believed is that he has held to his principles and said things that are, frankly, politically suicidal and widely unpopular. This includes his statement that federal integration laws were unconstitutional all the way to his assertion that there should be no federal laws against drug use. He is one-of-a-kind.

Naturally, a politician is still a politician and because Ron Paul is such a rarity many people tend to forget this. Most of those who like Ron Paul positively worship him and react with extreme emotion to any criticism or even any insufficiently effusive praise of the man. However, I will risk that to point out what those of us in Texas have long known. He is not perfect. I know it will not matter to his worshippers but I will say nonetheless that he is probably as close as any politician I have ever seen to being perfectly sincere and honest but, I am sorry, he is not totally pristine. For example, Ron Paul proudly says that he has never voted for any “pork barrel” projects or earmarks or that sort of stuff. As far as I know, he is being honest in saying that. Technically. However, he is being a bit disingenuous as he has inserted pork barrel projects into bills, knowing they would pass in any event and then vote against them so that his district will get their share of government goodies, thanks to him, while “technically” his hands remain clean since he voted against it. He is by no means the only politician to pull this trick but when he is otherwise so honest and consistent it stands out with him all the more.

The problem, though, is that as much as I like most of what Ron Paul says and as far and above the rest of the denizens of Congress I think he is, the fact is that he could never be elected President of the United States nor could he ever win a Republican Party primary. There are a number of reasons for this, and I am not saying it is right or fair or anything like that, I am simply pointing out the facts of the matter. There are simply too many voting blocks that would never vote for him. There is a reason why most politicians are not like Ron Paul, they have learned that you have to be a little dishonest and inconsistent to get ahead. You have to say things you don’t believe or change what you “believe” in order to appeal to different groups. That is why they win and Ron Paul does not. This is unfortunate because in some cases (but not all) it is the very things I like best about Ron Paul that would prevent him from ever winning national office or even the chance of running for that office. Let us take a look at a few examples of this.

African-Americans will never vote for Ron Paul. That should be no great surprise. For decades almost the entire African-American population has voted overwhelming for the Democrat Party and will not consider ever voting for anyone else. In the last few decades African-American loyalty to the Democrat Party has been a consistent 80-90%. There are also more African-Americans on some form of government assistance than any other group and Ron Paul wants to get rid of all such programs. So, African-Americans will *never* vote for Ron Paul. Similarly, Hispanics have been pretty loyal Democrat voters, not to the extent of some others, but they would never cross the aisle to vote for Ron Paul either. Ron Paul wants to pull American troops out of their bases around the world and deploy them to the U.S.-Mexican border, he wants to cut off all aid and assistance going to illegal aliens (predominately from Mexico) and end other programs that would ensure Hispanics would never vote for Ron Paul. He has also said secession is something that should not be taboo and that really upsets Hispanics these days, especially when it concerns Texas.

Moving on, Jewish-Americans would never support Ron Paul. This is not often talked about but it is the State of Israel that receives more foreign aid from the United States than any other foreign power and Ron Paul wants to cut off all foreign aid. The Jewish-American population is not going to like that idea nor would they ever vote for someone who thinks it is okay for Iran to have nuclear weapons and is opposed to the United States intervening militarily in the Middle East (or any other part of the world). Jews would never vote for Ron Paul. Also on the religious front, conservative Christians would never vote for Ron Paul. Although he shares many of their values, he does not believe the government has any place in regulating morality. Ron Paul has said, because of his strict interpretation of the Constitution and states’ rights, if the states want to legalize drugs, prostitution or gay marriage he would do nothing to oppose them. He has stated on many occasions that the government should not be about enforcing any sort of public morality and conservative Christians would never vote for someone who is okay with narcotics and prostitution being legal, no matter what the reason is. Those are mostly Protestants but likewise the Catholic Bishops would never support a candidate who wanted to put troops on the border and end social welfare programs as well as opposing the regulating of values issue. Christian conservatives would never vote for Ron Paul.

The people who pride themselves on being the knowledgeable ones concerning the economy and foreign policy would, likewise, never vote for Ron Paul. On the economic front, there are many people on Wall Street, the economic think tanks and the like, who would never vote for someone who wants to tie the economy to the gold standard. No matter how much sense it might make, they would never agree to limiting the growth of the U.S. economy to the amount of gold the country could acquire. They would probably also wet their pants over the abolition of the Federal Reserve and most federal economic regulations. Then there is the issue of foreign policy wherein Paul breaks ranks with most of his fellow GOP members. Their disagreement usually stems from their contradictory point of view. They think it would be injurious to American security and American interests for the U.S. to pull out from her many bases around the world and effectively adopt an isolationist foreign policy. Ron Paul believes that this would ultimately make the United States safer, that Islamic terrorists would not attack the U.S. if we did not maintain bases in their countries and ally with foreign leaders they oppose. Switzerland is often held up as an example; they engage in no foreign alliances and no one bothers them.

One may agree or disagree with Ron Paul on that point (the majority would disagree as the U.S. has never really been isolationist) but the actual practicality of it is never discussed. To some extent, I agree with Ron Paul on this issue, but only to an extent. However, I have never heard him address it beyond the talking points of the “military-industrial complex”, “bring our troops home” and ending the “American empire”. Agree or disagree, the fact is that the U.S. has signed many treaties and alliances with foreign powers and those are not things America could easily walk away from. My problem when it comes to blaming American intervention for anything in general is that one never knows where to neatly begin or they never address the myriad different possible scenarios in which things could have gone worse rather than better without American involvement. But not of that matters now. Right now the U.S. has obligations to numerous countries around the world and if America were to withdraw support from so many different countries, whether it was Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia or any other there would be dramatic and immediate consequences.

The United States is now a nation of minorities, more multicultural than at any other time in her history, and for every nation that would be affected by American isolationism there would be at least one ethnic group that would not be voting for Ron Paul. In the past such might not have been the case, but it is now. Personally, I would have no qualms about telling Europe to start footing the bill for their own security or to tell any nation that opposes American interests they can no longer count on American foreign aid or American forces to save their hides when they get in trouble. I would feel bad about leaving Japan in the lurch since the U.S. is the one that nuked the fighting spirit out of the Japanese almost completely but, even then, many already see the wind shifting and are speaking out in favor of being the ally of Red China rather than the unreliable Americans. That points to the problem of who would fill the vacuum left by an American withdrawal around the world. It would certainly not be the old colonial powers of Great Britain or France but would be Red China and perhaps some coalition of Muslim theocracies led by Iran on one side and a new “Islamic Republic of Arabia” on the other.

Good or bad, right or wrong, all of these are reasons why Ron Paul has never been elected to national office and will never be elected to national office. He simply doesn’t fit the current political system. At times he is also too honest such as when he said it was wrong for the U.S. to have killed Osama bin Laden. He made a very high-sounding argument to back that up, but when I heard it my eyes rolled in my head and I said, ‘there goes his chance of ever getting elected’. Even if another politician felt that way (and many Democrats do) they would certainly never say so publicly, especially so close to the ten year anniversary of 9-11. So, Ron Paul is a rare bird indeed, one of the most admirable politicians in the American government today and one of the painfully few who is consistent, principled and sincere. I have often stated that I would like to see him be President of the Republic of Texas but he has about as much chance of achieving that as he does of becoming President of the United States.